Homily for Sunday, 16 July 2023– Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Readings of the day: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14 (R: Luke 8:8); Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

I have been discovering a wonderful new podcast on Sunday homilies through the website of America Magazine over the last few weeks. The podcast is called “Preach.” This week on “Preach,” the featured homilist (who is a different person each week) is Fr. Bryan Massingale, a Black priest, theologian, and professor of social ethics at Fordham University.

Fr. Massingale begins his homily on “Preach” this week by asking how many of us have heard a preacher—a homilist, a retreat preacher—ask, about the Gospel reading we have just heard, something like: What kind of soil are you?

I will presume that we all know, and could practically recite without a text, Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew’s Gospel today. It is one of Jesus’ most memorable parables. The parable features four types of soil. Few of us, maybe even if, as Matthew’s Gospel says, we are lured away from our faith by “worldly anxiety and… riches” would readily admit to being the thorny soil. Few of us would admit to being the rocky soil, people of a joyless faith that does not allow the seed of the kingdom of heaven to take root. A few more of us might be willing to admit to being like the path: Those who hear “the word of the kingdom” but occasionally (or frequently) have difficulty “understanding it.” It would be very honest of us to admit when we are like the little wisp of soil that gets spread over a pathway, in which the seed of the kingdom cannot take root and sprout. Few of us (including myself) are Bible scholars; sometimes what exactly the Bible is saying—or what Jesus is saying—can be difficult for us to understand.

So it is fair, I think, that more of us could admit to being like the soil on a pathway than rocky or thorny soil. After all, the first Christians, before they first called themselves Christians at Antioch according to the Acts of the Apostles, were simply called “the Way.” They were “the Way,” the path. Maybe we are on to something if we consider that, even most of the time, we are the soil on the path, far from the most effective soil for sprouting and growing the fruits of the reign of heaven from seed.

I think that, only if we are really too proud and self-centered in our faith, will we most readily claim to be the good, rich soil that is most effective for growing the kingdom of heaven on earth. Often the greatest saints have also been the greatest at identifying their own deficiencies, even their own sins. So may we not delude ourselves into thinking that we are, even most of the time, like the rich soil that is most effective at sprouting and growing the kingdom of heaven among us.

What kind of soil are you; what kind of soil are we? Or, as Fr. Bryan Massingale might ask, does it matter what kind of soil we are? If we take the frequent approach to interpreting the parable of the sower, which is to assess how good we are (or not) at nourishing the seed that is God’s grace, God’s gifts to us that lead to salvation, we might become easily discouraged. If we are honest with ourselves—I know if I am honest with myself—we can point to many times in our lives when we have been anything but good soil to nourish the seed of grace God has sown in our lives and in our world. And if we are not so honest with ourselves, the only thing we nourish by the “quality of soil” approach to placing ourselves within Jesus’ parable of the sower is our own pride.

So please allow me to say that the “quality of soil” approach to interpreting the parable of the sower will never work well for us. We need to find another approach to interpreting this parable. The focus of Jesus’ parable of the sower is not us, or how good we are at nourishing the seed the sower, God, sows. No, the focus of the parable of the sower is—by the very name of the parable—the sower.

What is the most prominent quality of the sower in Jesus’ parable? The sower in this parable is ridiculous and reckless. This sower is messy. This sower scatters seed seemingly without care as to where it lands: On good soil, on the path, on rocky ground, or among thorns.

But for all this sower’s deficiencies—the sower is reckless, messy, careless as to where he sows seed—he seems awfully confident in the yield of his harvest; that even the small amount of seed that will land “on rich soil” will yield “fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” With exceeding confidence in his abilities as a sower, Jesus says to the crowds who hear his parable, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

I am surprised that, if we read on past the end of today’s reading in Matthew’s Gospel, the Gospel does not say that the crowds laughed heartily at Jesus’ ridiculous parable of the sower. No sower in his right mind would sow seed so indiscriminately, knowing that so little seed would fall on soil capable of nourishing it and allowing it to take root—No sower, that is, except God!

The focus of the parable of the sower is not us, or how “good” our soil is, which can vary from one moment to the next; the focus of the parable of the sower is and must be God, the sower of the seeds of grace, love, mercy, kindness, ultimately salvation. Jesus’ parable of the sower is and should be tremendously encouraging to us: God knows that the quality of our soil, so to speak, is variable. And only rarely will the seed of God’s saving grace land on the ideal soil. But enough of it will so that the world will be saved. Enough seed will land on good soil so that it will more than make up for our bad days, the times when we become discouraged by our own failings or the failings of others, the times when we sin, the times when we do the very best we can in the moment and, as Fr. Massingale says, through no fault of our own our best is simply not good enough. Yet enough seed will land on good soil as to increase the yield of good “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” Jesus’ message and its promise to us are remarkable!

I want to go back in our Christian history from our time, the time of excellent preachers like Fr. Bryan Massingale, oh, about seven hundred years to the time of St. Thomas Aquinas. In a part of his Summa Theologiae, the mother-of-all-theology-texts-of-all-time, St. Thomas imagines and addresses objections related to the Incarnation, God’s becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ. The first objection St. Thomas lists in this section of the Summa Theologiae is that “the Son of God ought not to have assumed human nature with defects of body,” like vulnerability to sickness (Did Jesus ever catch even a minor cold?), unsavory bodily functions, ultimately subjection to death.

St. Thomas Aquinas treats this objection graciously, but counters it by responding that the Incarnation, how it took place and the “defects of body” that Jesus assumed through it, are the will of God for our salvation. A shorthand for this argument of St. Thomas Aquinas is that God’s will for our salvation accounts for our deficiencies, our “defects,” even our sin. That is just the way God willed to save the world, to sow the seed of the reign of God in our world, in and through God’s Son, fully divine but also fully and perfectly human. And who are we to question how God willed to save the world through his Son? How are we to question how God sows the seed of God’s kingdom of heaven in our world, our experiences, our relationships, our successes and our failures?

God has a long history of sowing the seed of his grace through what he has created. We could say that God’s history of sowing this seed goes back to before the first moments of creation themselves. God’s way of sowing seed seems reckless, messy, careless as to where the seed lands. But God is confident in its yield, that enough will land on good, faithful soil as to produce “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

The prophet Isaiah today speaks of this same confidence of God that God’s grace, God’s word “shall not return to [God] void, but shall do [God’s] will, achieving the end for which [God] sent it.” And the same confidence in the saving yield of God’s grace permeates St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, from which we hear today. St. Paul does not deny that we can experience times when we do everything we can with the utmost faith, goodness, and kindness, and it simply is not good enough. St. Paul admits that “all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now.” Anybody here who has ever experienced a long, difficult childbirth knows what St. Paul is speaking of better than I do and probably even better than St. Paul himself did. We labor, and sometimes we are successful; other times we feel like our labour in God’s name has been a failure. Still other times we are guilty of sin outright: St. Paul speaks in Romans of creation’s “slavery to corruption.”

But with God as the sower of seeds of grace, none of this matters. God has promised a great yield, “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold” or, as St. Paul says to the Romans, “the redemption of our bodies.” God will not be denied; we will be redeemed. We will be saved, sometimes with our (successful) cooperation by being the “good soil” for the seed of God’s grace, other times in spite of not being the ideal soil. Yet God continues to go out to sow, in God’s own reckless, messy way that is the only way in which we will be saved.

Homily for Sunday, 16 July 2017

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65:10-11, 12-13, 14; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

This homily was given at St. Joseph’s College of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Have any of us ever tried to place ourselves within the scene of Jesus’ parable of the sower, or within any other Biblical scene for that matter? This imagining of ourselves “on scene” of a Biblical story or event is one of my favourite methods of praying with the Bible, one probably most famously pioneered by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. Ignatius calls this method of placing ourselves within a Biblical scene; taking in our surroundings with our senses— hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste— contemplation. It is a form of Lectio divina, a Latin term meaning literally “divine reading” with which some of us may be familiar.

The purpose of Lectio divina, whether Ignatian contemplation or several other forms is to lead us from an initial reading of a Biblical passage, an event or story, into a progressively deeper and more prayerful focus on the passage we are reading and hearing. Our attention may be drawn, more and more, to a single word or short phrase within the passage. In Lectio divina, I think, we are eventually drawn toward asking ourselves two questions the more we pray over a Biblical passage: What is the word or short phrase that attracts my attention, and why? What am I sensing, with my human senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste, when I feel attracted or perhaps confused, or maybe downright discomforted by a part of the passage over which I am praying? Why do I feel this way?

With these two questions in mind, let us return to Jesus’ parable of the sower that we hear today in Matthew’s Gospel. Imagine being “on scene,” as one person among the great crowds hearing Jesus as he preaches this parable of the sower that has become particularly familiar to us. Are many of us not able to recite the parable of the sower almost by rote?

“A sower went out to sow,” Jesus begins. Almost automatically, we might continue the parable: There are several types of soil or surfaces onto which the seed, which we may safely assume is the word of God, may fall. “Some seeds [fall] on the path.” Others fall “on rocky ground.” Still other seed falls “among thorns.” Finally, some seed falls “on good soil” and brings forth a great yield; a crop one “hundredfold [or] sixty [or] thirty” times what was initially sown. Only the seed that falls “on good soil” thrives in this way. The seed that falls “on the path” becomes food for the birds. The seed sown “on rocky ground” is unable to take root and so it withers and dies. The seed sown “among thorns” is choked out.

Jesus explains later that “the path” onto which some of the seed falls represents the people who hear “the word of the Kingdom,” God’s word, but do “not understand it,” and so are vulnerable to Satan, “the evil one,” who “snatches away” this seed; this word of God that is sown but not understood. The “rocky ground” represents the people who at first receive God’s word “with joy,” but “fall away” as soon as adversity, “trouble or persecution,” strikes. These people have not taken God’s word to heart, where it is able to take root and thrive. Other people fall prey to “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth,” and so God’s word, competing against worldly priorities made into our gods; our idols, is choked out much like seed sown “among thorns.” The “good soil” stands for “those who [hear] the word and [understand] it” and so the seed “bears fruit” by the way these people hear, pray over, and live out God’s word.

But, in this whole long parable and just-as-long explanation of it that Jesus offers us, might anybody here have noticed that Jesus never says where any of his hearers; where we stand with respect to his parable. Jesus does not (or not yet, anyway) judge the quality of our “soil”; of our hearts for hearing, understanding, and living by God’s word. Jesus does not point out the unfortunate soul in the front row and say, “You, how rocky a heart you have”! He does not single out the wealthy person, or the person feeling guilty about something he or she said or did, and is trying to hide him or herself in the middle of the crowd so not to be seen. “You with the thorny heart: Do you really expect my word to thrive in there? Shame on you”!

“Now, there we go, you who sit anywhere but the front row at Mass, like a good, stereotypical Catholic: There is a humble person with ‘good soil.’ My word will surely take root and thrive in your heart”… But no, Jesus does not say this! He would not insult our intelligence in this way. Instead, Jesus honours our conscience. In honouring our conscience, though, Jesus leaves it up to us to discern, that is to think, sense, and pray over carefully, where we stand with respect to his parable of the sower. What kind of “soil” are we? Are we really the “good soil” we would like to be, or are our hearts at times more like the path, the rocky ground, or the patch of thorns in which God’s word cannot thrive?

Here I think Jesus, through his parable of the sower, is leading us in an examination of conscience. When we think of an examination of conscience, how many of us think of generating a “laundry list” of our failures; our sins since a particular point in time, maybe since our last confession? This is only part of an examination of conscience. Essentially, to make an examination of conscience is not only an occasional, even daily, accounting for our failures; our sins. It is to think, sense (with our senses, if we remember St. Ignatius’ way of placing ourselves within a Biblical scene, story, or event), and pray constantly, not only occasionally, over two questions: Where am I in this scene, story, event, my own successes, failures, and so forth? And where is God in all this; in my own life?

How good of quality is my “soil,” and how is God continuing to sow God’s word in me; in us, even when our soil is not sometimes of the best quality; when we are not fully disposed and attentive to understanding God’s word; even when we are conscious of having sinned? In this sense, our examination of conscience is connected to our “divine reading” of Scripture; to placing ourselves within these events, stories, and parables of the Bible and allowing the Bible to enlighten our own lives. St. Ignatius calls this form of “divine reading” (Lectio divina) contemplation, but he also calls it the examen. St. Ignatius’ examen is a key and constant part of his famously intense Spiritual Exercises that some of us may know or have undertaken.

Engage in this “divine reading” of Scripture. Place ourselves “on scene” in the Bible’s events, stories, and parables. This is the examen in Ignatius’ words, the examination of conscience to which we are called. It is a constant rather than occasional process and, I will admit, not an easy one. Of what quality is my “soil”; my disposition to receive and live the word of God; the word of God’s “kingdom”? How does God continue to sow in us, sometimes in spite of our less-than-ideal “soil” conditions? And then how are we called to be sowers in turn of God’s “word of the Kingdom”?

We are able to answer these questions; to examine our consciences well; to allow God to increase the quality of our “soil”— our hearts— for receiving his word; to sow God’s word in turn to our world, only if we are able to sense God’s word with our human senses. Jesus invites us to place ourselves “on scene”: Let anyone with eyes see; with hands and feet and a body touch; with a nose smell; with a mouth taste…

“Let anyone with ears listen”!

Homily for Wednesday, 20 July 2016– Ferial

Wednesday of the 16th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15, 17; Matthew 13:1-9

This homily was given at the chapel of Kateri House Women's Residence of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Have any of us ever been asked to do something we thought to be difficult, or even unreasonably beyond our capabilities?

Today’s readings are especially meaningful to me for a few reasons: Our reading from Jeremiah was the first reading during my ordination as a deacon three years ago this upcoming September. And, well before I was a priest, or a deacon, or a seminarian, or even a microbiology lab tech, the job I had immediately before entering the seminary, I was a mushroom farmer.

On the farm, if I may describe the process of planting or, as we called it, spawning the mushrooms, it was not like planting most ordinary vegetables. The spawn is like little sticky grains, each of the size and consistency of cooked rice. To spawn the mushrooms, the farmer takes a handful of these little grains and scatters them somewhat haphazardly on the growing beds that have been layered with soil. Most of the spawn lands on the fertile soil, where it quickly takes root and, after a month or so, produces tasty mushrooms. But some spawn lands on the farmer’s clothing, or on the floor of the growing room where it is trodden under foot, or in other places where it will not grow into mushrooms.

Does this sound familiar to any of us? Perhaps few if any of us have been mushroom farmers, and yet Jesus’ parable of the sower reminds me of the mushroom farm every time I hear it: The sower scatters seed haphazardly. Some seed falls “on good soil” and brings “forth grain” of a sizeable yield, but as much or more seed falls “on the path,” where the birds eat it. “Other seeds fall on rocky ground” where they lack soil and are scorched by the sun; still other seeds fall “among thorns” and are choked out.

I question God’s efficiency as a sower! Could our Almighty God not have sown seed more efficiently than haphazardly scattering it to fall where it may? Even we mushroom farmers are (maybe) more efficient and less messy when spawning than the sower is in Matthew’s Gospel. And, most inefficiently of all, God asks us to take part in the sowing!

As a priest, I consider this to be a most difficult task, although not beyond my capabilities most days. An exception lately has been when we hear and many are scared by the latest horror in the world: Terrorist attacks; police shooting or being shot; wars; other violence; gossip and bullying… I want to protest, in Jeremiah’s words, “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”

And there God is to say to me; to us: “Do not be afraid… Now I have put my words into your mouth.” Imagine, then, God handing us a large container of seed; a handful of mushroom spawn, and asking us: “Will you help me to scatter this seed; to speak my Word to a world in need? Do not worry first about efficiency. Do not be afraid; together we will make a great big creative mess in our world! Enough seed will fall on fertile soil that the yield will be amazing. I promise.”

Homily for Sunday, 13 July 2014– Parish Patronal Feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65:10-11, 12-13, 14; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

Who among us would consider ourselves to be blessed or gifted? Who among us are among the good soil over which the seed, the Word of God that Jesus describes in today’s Gospel reading, is sown?

With some boldness, I say that I would consider each and every one of us here to be blessed or gifted, perhaps not in the same way from person to person, but blessed and gifted nonetheless. With notable, even some scandalous exceptions, even here in our city of Rochester, we live in affluence relative to most people in our world. We live in a peaceful and secure country. We gather in this space; as one St. Kateri Parish to worship God. Even more significantly, I believe that Jesus does not only speak to a people who lived thousands of years ago in a distant land when he says: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” Jesus speaks primarily to us, here and now.

To be a people that is blessed and gifted; to be baptized into this communion of brothers and sisters in Christ carries with it an important responsibility. We are called to be the “good soil” of which Jesus speaks in our Gospel reading while at the same time co-operating with our Lord in sowing the seed; the Word of God with which we are blessed; which dwells and multiplies its blessing in every one of us. This kind of sowing of the seed, the Word of God, is called evangelization; literally spreading good news.

How, then, are we to be the “good soil” while at the same time being sowers of the Good News; the Word of God, after Jesus Christ? This task may seem daunting to us. It may seem overwhelming for us to think of being at once “good soil” and sowers, or evangelists, when we think of our own shortcomings; when we think of the times when we have not been as good soil as we were created and baptized to be.

Have we ever experienced being the few grains of soil “on the path,” incapable of sustaining growth of the seed; the Word of God? When have we not understood the Word of God well enough in order to spread it? This lack of understanding could be because at times we have not listened well enough to God’s Word that has been communicated to us, or because we as Church have simply not communicated the Word of God effectively enough for it to be received and to bear fruit. Are we at times “the rocky ground” that receives the Word of God with a vibrant but short-lived joy that cannot sustain itself in difficult times in our lives? Are we sometimes the thorns of “worldly anxiety and… riches” that choke out the Word of God? The affluence and power of our country in relationship to most of our world often serves the good particularly of the less powerful; the needy; the poor, but it can easily become self-serving.

Have not many if not all of us had experiences of being soil that cannot sustain or allow further growth of the Word of God; experiences of failure; experiences of sin? And yet, only if we do not allow these experiences to make us afraid, but we ask God and one another for forgiveness and the strength to spread the Good News of Christ, will we be effective evangelizers, at once “the good soil” and good sowers. As Pope Francis has said repeatedly since he became pope, we are called not to close in on ourselves as a fearful Church, but to go out to the periphery. We are called to sow God’s Word among the many “prophets and righteous people” of our time of whom Jesus speaks in our Gospel reading; who have yet to hear and to see the Word of God proclaimed and lived; who have lost hope; who are poor; who are hurting; who are estranged from the Church; from God, for whatever reason.

Pope Francis has also said repeatedly that we cannot tire of asking for forgiveness from a God who does not tire of forgiving us; of watering and fertilizing our soil; of helping us to sow the seed of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Even more significantly, our pope has said, we cannot be afraid of making the occasional mess when we are sowing. The alternative is not sowing at all; the alternative is to stifle God’s word with which we are all gifted. This would be a shame.

We are invited to be at once sowers of the Word of God and the good and fertile soil for this Word to bear fruit. This entails being unafraid of making the occasional mess. Well before I was a Basilian, I worked as a mushroom farmer. In each mushroom growing room, we farmers first had to roll the soil from large machines onto the growing beds. Second, we would sprinkle the mushroom spores (which were similar in appearance to grains of rice) between layers of soil. These two tasks, especially the somewhat haphazard sprinkling of the spores, were hard and messy work. Most of the spores would land on the soil; a significant amount would not. These tasks in the mushroom farm have long reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the sower. Certainly as mushroom farmers we were unafraid of making a mess or of some of the “seed” (or spores) missing the soil on the growing beds. The same must be true of the evangelist; the sower of the seed that is God’s Word; the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We as evangelists; as both sowers and good soil, are invited to trust that, even as we experience weakness; as we experience our own sin; as we experience lack of reception of the Word we sow; as we make the occasional mess, most of the seed we sow will, by God’s grace, find fertile soil; faithful hearts in which it will multiply and spread.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha, patroness of our parish whose feast we celebrate today, is an example of trusting in God as she evangelized her own Native American people. In response to her own frailty; her (and our) own disposition to sin, St. Kateri lived a life of penance. But she did not allow her experiences of frailty; of poor physical health for much of her life; of often sluggish reception of the Christian faith among her own people to inhibit her from sowing the seed of the Word of God. And so, as we have prayed in our opening prayer of this celebration, we recognize St. Kateri as one who “gathered” many “into [the] Church from every nation, tribe, and tongue.”

Our calling is the same now as for St. Kateri centuries ago: To gather together a people “from every nation, tribe, and tongue” who will “magnify [God] in a single canticle of praise.” Our calling is to be at once the “good soil” and good sowers after our Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine if we become the evangelists; the “good soil” and good sowers whom Jesus invites us to be, how quickly we will be able to spread the Word; the Good News of God! We will be able to echo the words of Jesus, of our Gospel reading, in the ears of people who will hear the Gospel and see it in action for the first time; people near and far: “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”

These are the words Jesus speaks to us today. These are words and actions exemplified by St. Kateri and the communion of saints who raise our prayers to God.  These are words and actions that we, a people blessed and gifted with the Word of God are invited to practice and speak to those around us; to a world continuously in need of the Good News of Jesus Christ. And the same Jesus Christ promises us that, if we sow the seed of God’s Word while remaining fertile soil for God’s Word ourselves; if we trust God to strengthen us in our sowing, our efforts will bear fruit beyond our imagining.